Ed Darack’s The Warriors of Anbar is a riveting account of the heroic battle waged by several battalions of Marines and U.S. service members to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq and bring stability to the Haditha Triad, a cluster of towns along the Euphrates River in western Iraq’s Al Anbar Province.
The Warriors of Anbar primarily focuses on the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment (2/3), which replaced sister battalion 3/3 in the towns of Haqlaniyah, Haditha, Barwana, and Albu Hyatt in September 2006. There, 2/3 found al Qaeda in Iraq in its “last desperate gasps for survival.” Having been beaten back to more familiar turf after defeats in Fallujah and Ramadi, the enemy was using intimidation and brute force to maintain a stranglehold on the citizens of the Triad.
The companies of 2/3 set to work on a counterinsurgency campaign, focusing on fighting for the safety and trust of the local population. Chief in that effort was reestablishing a more robust Iraqi police presence to provide security and help convince local leaders to rebuild elements of civil society. Several crises would arise from 2/3’s close work with the Iraqi police, whose extrajudicial methods for handling the enemy proved problematic for the Marines.
Ruthless attacks began the day 2/3 took full responsibility for the Triad. Al Qaeda used torture, killings, and rape as tools of vengeance and intimidation against locals. Against the Marines, the enemy employed deadly improvised explosive devices in addition to accurate sniper fire, mortars, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades. Al Qaeda’s short-lived ambushes left 2/3 feeling they “fought against an army of phantoms on a battlefield of shadows.”
Darack paints a thorough picture of numerous devastating al Qaeda strikes, starting prior to the first contact with the enemy, and often ending with devastating depictions of Marines collecting the scattered pieces of their fallen. Accounts of losses are colored with personal details, including intimate descriptions of the sorrow experienced by members of the battalion and the effect on loved ones back home.
As the Marines slogged through a hard battle against a deadly enemy, they also struggled against the constraints of oversight, investigations, and actual surveillance from higher echelons for a portion of the deployment.
The leadership of 2/3, however, enabled success. Battalion commander Lt. Col. James Donnellan led from the front, visiting local leaders and his dispersed companies throughout the Triad, consistently emphasizing the protection of the Triad’s population even at the expense of service members’ safety.
Other battalion leaders, such as Echo Company commander Capt. Matt Tracy came up with innovative ways to reach out to the locals. On Halloween, Tracy sent costumed Marines to distribute 150 pounds of treats and a message of hope to local families. On Christmas, Echo Marines would distribute over 2,000 pounds of gifts, candy, and food sent from the United States to the families of Haditha.
Meanwhile, in Iraq al Qaeda made critical errors. An IED placed along a route near a school killed and maimed numerous children, whom locals brought to the Marines for urgent assistance. Then al Qaeda equipped a young girl on a bicycle with a suicide bomb:
When al Qaeda in Iraq began killing their children, the locals stopped listening to terrorists’ threats and began assisting the Marines. What Darack calls the “Haditha Awakening,” along with additional measures to control population flow and limit the enemy’s freedom of movement, would allow the Marines and their Iraqi counterparts to oust al Qaeda in Iraq from urban areas and restore the activities of daily life to the Triad.
When 2/3 left the Triad in April 2007, they had achieved their mission. Markets were open and Marines frequented them. The locals were effusive in their thanks, inviting Marines into their homes for food and hugging them in the streets. The local children, forced to wear black during al Qaeda’s rule, were wearing colors again. The Triad had come back to life.
That success had come at great expense. By the end of 2/3’s deployment, 23 Marines were dead with an additional 177 Marines wounded.
The Warriors of Anbar is rife with detail, achieved through Darack’s time embedded with 2/3 in the Triad. Reading is an immersive experience as fast-paced storytelling mimics the operational tempo of 2/3’s deployment.
Released by Da Capo Press on the Marine Corps’ Nov. 10 birthday and available on Amazon, The Warriors of Anbar is enjoyable for a variety of audiences. Minimal use of jargon and acronyms render the book approachable for civilians with all levels of knowledge of the Iraq War. The rich details and stories of camaraderie and bravery will make it valuable to those who have studied or participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In The Warriors of Anbar, Darack has compiled a history of selfless sacrifices made not only for the safety of Americans back home but for a foreign population living under the brutality of radical terrorists.
Darack closes with a gripping recollection from Tracy, who would become commanding officer of 3/3. Every morning, Tracy sat on the hood of his car, watching the barracks where members of 2/3 who had died in the Triad once lived. One day, a sergeant approached to ask Tracy about his strange routine:
‘Ghosts?’ the Marine asked. ‘Ghosts?’
‘Yeah, sergeant,’ Tracy said. ‘Ghosts.’
‘What are they saying?’ the sergeant asked after a pause.
‘They’re saying ‘don’t ever forget us.’’ The sergeant stared at Tracy. ‘And sometimes they speak Latin.’
‘Latin?’ the sergeant asked. ‘What do they say in Latin?’
Lieutenant Colonel Tracy smiled at the sergeant.
‘They say Semper Fidelis.’
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
